"This year's Oracle OpenWorld has reflected some interesting bets on
the future of databases, cloud, big data, and analytics, along with many
other macro-trends like social, mobile, and Internet of Things (IoT),"
writes Mark Peters, Nik Rouda from ESG.

"Oracle is doubling down on positioning itself as a cloud leader
with emphasis on 'pluggable' databases that can be easily hosted
multi-tenant on-premises or migrated to a public cloud with a single
command line. Database-as-a-service or DBaaS is clearly a priority and
it's being complemented by more cloud-oriented middleware and many new
SaaS offerings.

At the same time, Oracle is also playing the field with simultaneous bets
spread across appliances (now being called 'Engineered Systems') and
software-only approaches. The feeling that this is both wise diversity
and a hedging strategy was unavoidable. The value propositions of
time-to-value, simplicity, and supportability around Exadata systems,
a Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance, and Big Data Appliances (BDA)
were all well covered..."

More data is being collected each day across devices, systems and networks, and the velocity of this data collection is picking up speed. With all this new data, however, come new challenges relating to capacity, security and accessibility. Storage software and hardware both need constant updating, and they also need to be tested periodically for disaster recovery functions. Legacy storage systems generally are no longer efficient or effective enough to support data center growth and scale, thus enterprises must continually review their investments in data storage.

"While we may disagree about whether hyperconverged architectures will
take over the data center and if there's a future for dedicated storage
arrays, the storage and virtualization chattering classes are in agreement
that the LUN, as a unit of storage abstraction, needs to die. Now that
VMware is actually preparing to release its long-awaited Virtual Volumes
(VVOLs) technology, we can start managing storage one VM at a time.

Today's SAN protocols and storage systems require a logical connection
from a server to each volume that server will connect to and limit
each server to 255 active connections. This limit seemed quite generous
for physical servers with exclusive access to a volume. And as long as
storage administrators were dealing with a handful of physical servers,
requiring a few CLI commands or mouse clicks to provision a new volume
was reasonable..."

Economic pressures, regulatory oversight, and shifting customer expectations have permanently changed the financial services industry. Banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, and retail finance companies are now challenged with balancing cost-reduction against new investments in innovation to better capture, service, and support the modern customer. In the midst of this transformation, financial services providers are more concerned than ever with meeting compliance requirements dictated by Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the Consumer Protection Act, Dodd-Frank, and other laws.

"Self-driving cars get all the press. But there are lots of autonomous systems navigating the physical world, and more to come.

"The smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT," David Cearley, vice president & Gartner Fellow, declared recently. One in three jobs will be converted to software, robots, and smart machines by 2025, Gartner predicts.

Driving this phenomenon are improvements in hardware and software, including a profusion of fast and affordable sensors, wireless networks including short-range networks for machine-to-machine communications, GPS and other positioning technologies, machine vision, and machine learning..."

"Whether you're leading a routine sales call, a training session or that hoped-for breakthrough presentation to the higher-ups, why not wow them by wirelessly connecting your laptop, tablet or phone to the room's projector or large display? It's easier than you might think.

The good news: Some of the same inexpensive devices that stream entertainment media over a home Wi-Fi network -- Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku and
others -- can also be used in the boardroom. The ten devices we've rounded up plug into a projector or large monitor and can mirror the display of a laptop, tablet or smartphone so you can make presentations from your own device -- and from anywhere in the room..."

"Imagine that almost every household had an inexpensive, easy-to-use, handheld gadget capable of automatically measuring key vital signs (blood pressure, blood oxygen level, heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature) as well as accurately diagnosing more than a dozen serious illnesses (including anemia, diabetes, hepatitis A, pneumonia, tuberculosis and stroke). This device would also be able to instantly share the information it collects with professional caregivers when appropriate..."

"The drone world could have become a fragmented mess of proprietary
systems but Dronecode promises to deliver sophisticated, free, open
source platforms

If I had to pick the top ten hottest technology fields of 2014 right now,
one of my choices would be drones.

Actually, the term 'drone' is generally misused as it should strictly only
be applied to pilotless, autonomous devices ('unmanned aerial vehicles'
or UAVs) but, thanks to the US military and the mainstream press, the
term has come to encompass remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) as well..."

"Bitcoin ATMs have become one of the symbols of cryptocurrency, with multiple competing manufacturers and hundreds of units deployed around the world. Despite their growing popularity, however, Bitcoin ATMs are still vastly outnumbered by traditional financial terminals. While more Bitcoin ATMs are undoubtedly on their way, one of the best ways to reduce this disparity is not by building new units, but by converting existing terminals to handle bitcoins..."

"As someone who spends one to two hours every day reading about Bitcoin,
I assumed that the newly released documentary 'The Rise and Rise of
Bitcoin' wouldn't have much to offer me. I assumed it would be some sort
of primer for people who are unfamiliar with the technology.

Boy, was I wrong... Now go pop some popcorn, gather your non-crypto
friends 'round (especially important), and enjoy this piece of literal
resistance."

Understand and execute best practices when administering advanced features of Oracle Solaris 11

Master special features of Oracle Solaris 11 such as ZFS objects, networking framework with RNC (Reactive Network Configuration), and get introduced to Performance Monitoring using sophisticated commands

Practical and easy-to-learn recipes explaining how to install, configure, update, and manage the Solaris OS and its application

Who This Book Is For

If you are a Solaris administrator who wants to learn more about administering an Oracle Solaris system and want to go a level higher in utilizing the advanced features of Oracle Solaris, then this book is for you. A working knowledge of Solaris Administration is assumed.

Michael Hickins writes in Forbes, "Cloud computing has become the ultimate in self-service technologies for an increasingly tech-savvy crowd of business users, according to Rebecca Wettemann, the research chief at Nucleus Research.

The technology has also become increasingly easy for chief information officers to integrate with legacy on-premise IT systems, allowing them to redeploy their resources for more high-impact assignments. Wettemann said the cloud also provides less well-known benefits, such as a reduction in corporate income tax when companies tap into their operating expense budgets to pay for software as a service - as opposed to depreciating IT systems as capital expenses..."

Wim blogs, "I love talking about Oracle Ksplice and how cool a technology and feature it is. Whenever I explain to customers how much they can do with it, they often just can't believe the capabilities until I show them, in a matter of literally 5 seconds that it actually really -just works-.
During Oracle OpenWorld, we talked about it a lot, of course, and I wanted to show you how far back these ksplice updates can go. How much flexibility it gives a system administrator in terms of which kernel to use, how easy and fast it is, etc...

One of the main advantages of the ksplice technology is the ability for us to build these updates for many, many, yes many,... kernels and have a highly automated and scalable build infrastructure..."

"The migration to the cloud is well under way. Everyone thought it
would be a sprint, but it's more like a slow jog that picks up speed
each year. That's the pace preferred by enterprises adopting any new
technology, and cloud computing is no exception.

Now that we're now on our second or third cloud migration projects,
I see enterprises making the same mistakes over and over again. Some
issues are quickly corrected, while others are killing cloud computing
projects altogether..."

"We interviewed 16 CIOs and IT leaders about their public and private
cloud deployments, usage trends, skills requirements, lingering obstacles
and future plans. Here are some nuggets of advice from these cloud giants.

1. Don't get too caught up in cost savings. 'If you make it a money
thing, you're making a mistake,' says Joe Spagnoletti, CIO at Campbell
Soup. 'It's an option to deliver capability. You have to get it at the
cost commensurate with the capability. You can't do it for cost savings
or management efficiency'..."

"CIOs are taking a pragmatic approach to cloud computing, selectively launching SaaS applications and shifting infrastructure resources to IaaS platforms while building their own private clouds.

In our interviews with CIOs and cloud leaders at 16 large enterprises we found that everybody is doing some form of cloud computing. But nobody is all-in on the cloud.

The CIOs we talked to are enthusiastic about the potential for cloud computing, but their optimism is tempered by realism. All are well aware of the challenges posed by decades of investments in legacy systems..."

"More than three-quarters of CIOs and CFOs fear that their enterprises
are missing out on revenue opportunities due to the absence of the right
cloud infrastructure strategy and cloud applications to support digital
business transformation, according to research.

As customers become more tech-savvy and 'always online', their shopping
habits and expectations are changing. Digital experience delivery can
make - or break - organisations, so a great digital experience is now
a necessity. Businesses need agile and flexible infrastructure to make
that digital transformation and meet users' new expectations..."

"As the clouds roll in, IT organizations are recasting their tech talent
requirements.

'You don't need people to build servers anymore. You need somebody good
at managing another organization responsible for doing that. That's a
different skill,' says Josh Jewett, CIO at Family Dollar. 'You go from
managing outcomes yourselves to managing outcomes through others'..."

"A strange thing is happening in cloud computing: pricing continues to drop even as more competitors enter the fray, and the functionality available increases. For smaller companies or limited-use cloud applications, pricing may be the ultimate in affordability: free. An interesting confluence of factors has created this unique period in cloud computing..."

"In our interviews with CIOs at large enterprises, we found that adoption
levels vary from simple experimentation to heavy use of cloud apps
and infrastructure in public and private settings. Yet even among the
most cloud-focused businesses, there are resources CIOs won't consider
migrating to the cloud - at least not yet.

Certain tactical capabilities can easily be acquired in the public
cloud, but not everything falls into that category. Some enterprise
systems aren't ready to be run in the public cloud because of safety
and reliability concerns, says Joe Spagnoletti, CIO at Campbell Soup..."

"Doug Wolfe, the chief information officer of the Central Intelligence
Agency, is a cloud pioneer. His job: Guide the development of cloud
computing for the whole of the intelligence community, knock down barriers
between silos of data and analysis, introduce speedy IT and software
development to traditionally slow-moving organizations and help make
the intelligence sector a beacon of innovation for the rest of government.

That might not be how his job description is written, but as the
technology leader at the CIA, that's the mission he's embarked on..."

"The cloud beckons, but large banks keep clinging to their data centers, for competitive, compliance and security reasons.

Cloudsourcing - an arrangement in which a company pays a cloud provider to carry out services that could be provided in-house - would appear to have many advantages. It could help banks alleviate the cost of running large data centers at a time when the industry is grappling with tight budgets.

But at last week's annual Sibos conference in Boston, several bank technology executives said they remain leery of using the public cloud, particularly for treasury and asset management data..."

"A group of companies that sell products to build private clouds has
determined a price at which it claims it is less expensive to operate
a private cloud compared to using Amazon Web Service's IaaS public cloud.

A report from the vendors - which include a collocation provider, a cloud
management vendor and a network operator - attempts to address a question
many organizations may be considering: When is it better to use a public
cloud versus a managed hosting or collocation environment? The case study
finds that if an organization is spending more than $7,644 in Amazon's
cloud each month, then it can be cheaper to operate a private cloud..."

"There's a reason why marketers keep IT in the dark about marketing tech purchases. The geeks will put the tech vendor through an obscene, jargon-filled laundry list of requirements and testing that will drag the sales cycle for months.
Marketers won't be able to get their hands on the technology until it's too late -- that is, after competitors beat them to the punch.

But is there a downside to not involving IT?

Forrester thinks so. Here are three things that can and will go wrong with shadow IT..."

"Rapidly developing computer technologies and the unrelenting evolution of cyberrisks present one of the biggest challenges to the (re)insurance sector today. Liabilities from cyberattacks and threats to the data security of cloud computing and social media have become key emerging risks for carriers. The unprecedented rise in cyberattacks, in addition to the threat cyberrisk poses to global supply chains, has seen the cyberinsurance market grow significantly in recent years.

Client demand for cyber coverage has been growing, on average, 30% annually in the United States over the past several years, according to Marsh. While demand varies by industry, the one constant has been that more clients are investigating and analyzing existing traditional insurance coverage and whether they need standalone cyberrisk insurance coverage..."

"You have a lot of data now, and as 'big data' piles in you are going to
have a lot more in future. But not all data is equal, and neither are
all storage solutions. Some data is essential to routine operations,
and needs to be available at all times. Some is critically important,
but can be archived until needed for internal analysis or external
auditing perhaps. Other data is merely useful; you don't want to lose
it, but it may not be worth spending a lot of money on multiple back-ups
and instant availability.

Your data storage solution shouldn't be based on on a one-size-fits-all
basis. Here's the LinuxIT list of things CIOs and CTOs need to consider
to ensure that your strategy for storing data addresses your business
needs, at the lowest possible cost..."

"Winning in the age of the digital consumer and the 'mobile moment'
requires the CIO and the CMO to work together, Forrester CEO George
Colony said at Dreamforce. Together, they can truly understand customer
behavior and how customers use technology.

In today's business world, the digital consumer is all-powerful, marketing
holds the keys to unlocking the "mobile moment," and the CIO must take on
new skills in order to seize the business tech mantle. Make no mistake,
we've entered an era on par with the greatest business transformations
in U.S. history, says Forrester CEO George Colony..."

"The HR technology landscape, which is now more than a $15 billion market in software, is exploding with growth and innovation. We are tracking more than 100 new startups in social and referral recruiting, talent analytics, assessment science, online learning, and mid-market core HR systems. New tools to help manage employee communications, engagement, recognition, and workplace wellness are also red hot..."

"Corporate IT spends a great deal of time justifying the return on investment (ROI) it gets from hardware and data center investments, but it often neglects software investments altogether. By some accounts, 80% of most commercial software features go untapped, with only about 20% being actively used. What should you expect from your software investments and how do you make sure you're getting it? Here are 10 ways to maximize your software ROI..."

Come out and connect with other IT professionals! vBeers is a great event meant to promote growth of the IT industry here in South Florida. Register today so you can be a part of this great monthly event! Feel free to invite all of your friends and co workers who work in the IT industry!

This will be a Sponsored event so beers are on us. Join us for an evening of creating connections and building your network in a relaxed and fun environment.
There is absolutely NO SALES PITCH, just FREE ice cold beers and tech talk!

"Meet-Ups" are an essential aspect of your professional growth and development. Connect with an array of professionals while enjoying a drink or two.

Biscayne Tavern (Inside of the B2 Hotel)

146 Biscayne Blvd

Miami, FL 33132

Please register and share this invitation with your IT colleagues and encourage them to attend!

"Declaring to your whole company that the project everyone is excited
about is in trouble can be demoralizing. But it's exactly what can turn
the problems around.

When health care insurer WellPoint ran into trouble changing its provider
payment system, it only turned things around after putting the project
into 'Status Red.'

The project's big vision is to shift from a model where the company
pays physicians based on volume (procedures, visits, admissions) to
one where it pays based on 'value' (ability to manage costs and improve
patient outcomes and quality of care). That model is sometimes called
the 'shared savings model,' because insurers share any savings with
primary care providers. WellPoint has said that shared savings could
help physicians increase their earnings by 30 to 50%...."

How can you use Oracle technology to meet today's IT challenges? Find
out at the Virtual Technology Summit (VTS). Hear from Oracle ACEs, Java
Champions, and Oracle product experts as they share their insight and
experience in meeting those challenges. Oracle is offering three chances
to watch and interact with Oracle and community experts. Register Now
by clicking one of the links below!

"Everyday folks don't see what all the fuss is about the Internet of Things. In fact, more than four out of five have never even heard of it, a recent survey finds.

Such perception is important because the IoT market will need consumer buy-in to make its way into our homes and cars and onto our bodies in a significant way. At the moment, consumers aren't buying IoT -- but that will change over the next few years..."

"In the real estate world, the mantra is location, location, location. In the network and server administration world, the mantra is visibility, visibility, visibility. If you don't know what your network and servers are doing at every second of the day, you're flying blind. Sooner or later, you're going to meet with disaster.

Fortunately, many good tools, both commercial and open source, are available to shine much-needed light into your environment. Because good and free always beat good and costly, I've compiled a list of my favorite open source tools that prove their worth day in and day out in networks of any size. From network and server monitoring to trending, graphing, and even switch and router configuration backups, these utilities will see you through..."

"The Internet of Things (IoT) narrative is rife with speculation on what IoT will, might or could be. Although wearables and Smart Home products like connected refrigerators and toothbrushes capture consumer and media attention, serious industry-watchers ponder their business viability. Aside from pure entertainment value or small conveniences, they ask: What long-term utility will these products deliver?..."

"SDN is exiting the hype phase and entering the usage stage. The data
center software-defined networking market is expected to grow more than
65% in 2014 to about $3 billion, reflecting the maturity of architectures
and the deployments under way, according to Dell'Oro Group.

Network security appliances and Ethernet switches will continue to
comprise the majority of SDN's impact, which is gaining a foothold
outside of the major cloud providers, Dell'Oro notes. Application delivery
controllers will also be impacted positively by SDNs as users demand more
integrated features, such as security, on their devices when technology
shifts like SDN emerge, the firm says..."

It's slower than a snail and as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. That's "carrier time" -- the cycle for creation and rollout of new telco features, functions, and technology. Carriers are deliberate and risk averse, which leads to a slow and plodding pace for new service delivery, especially when viewed through the prism of today's turbo-charged competition from Internet players..."

"Triggered by a discussion with a customer yesterday, it occurred to me
(again?) that network engineers are creatures of habit and control. We
have strong beliefs of how networks should be architected, designed
and build. We have done so for long times and understand it well. We
have tweaked our methods, our tools, our configuration templates. We
understand our networks inside out. We have a very clear mental view
of how they behave and how packets get forwarded, how they should be
forwarded. It's comfort, it's habit, we feel (mostly) in control of the
network because we have a clear model in our head.

I don't believe this is a network engineering trait per se. Software
engineers want to understand algorithms inside out, they want to
understand the data modeling, types structures and relationships..."

"The sophisticated electronic components that are making modern cars safer, greener, and smarter are also making them dangerously vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Dealing with the threat will require automakers to think beyond typical preventive security measures such as encryption, strong authentication, and system segmentation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a report this week.

The report, and two others also released this week, summarizes the NHTSA's research on the security risks raised by the introduction of increasingly complex electronic components in modern cars..."

"Retailers are beside themselves with worry as the spate of data breaches
among them continues. With Black Friday approaching, what can retailers
still do to protect themselves from these cybercrooks?

While it may be too late for retailers to do anything major with their
IT platform, network and infrastructure to protect them substantially
from this year's anticipated denial of service (DoS) attacks, there are
some actions IT teams can take.

While some of these actions may seem simplistic, these last-minute
initiatives could make a difference when it comes to keeping company
and customer information secure:..."

"Poor password habits are putting employers at risk and losing them hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost productivity, according to new research from Centrify. According to the survey of 1,000 UK workers, the average employee wastes £261 a year in company time on trying to manage multiple passwords, which for a company with 500 staff is a loss of more than £130,000 a year..."

"Modern websites rely on many moving parts operating behind the scenes, which often include a mashup of Javascript, content, files, applications, and digital ads. Some of this code may be written by website owners, while the rest of the content can be any combination of resources called in from different locations on the Internet and under the control of third-party organizations..."

While growth in the IT industry as a whole continues at a brisk pace, some skills are hotter than others. "There are key areas of technology right now that are growing faster than others," says Dice.com president Shravan Goli. "What's interesting is that this growth stretches across a variety of industries.

The 10 job categories that follow represent the fastest-growing IT skills based on year-over-year growth in mentions in Dice.com's job postings. Skills made the list by being included in more than 1,000 postings. The growth rates listed are based on the ratio of current mentions compared mentions from September 2013.

"For many businesses, having a large office space is becoming unnecessary and adds unnecessary costs. And for many employees, commuting to an office is quickly becoming a thing of the past as they start to realize, and appreciate, the perks that come with telecommuting.

According to a report by Global Workplace Analytics, telecommuting grew nearly 80 percent between 2005 and 2011, and shows no signs of slowing down..."

"How much can your social-media profile help or hurt you as a job
hunter? A new poll of 1,855 recruiters suggests that tweeting about
your civic and volunteer work can brighten your candidacy. Beyond that,
it's best to stay quiet about your hedonistic habits after hours -
especially your sex life.

The survey was conducted in August by JobVite, a San Mateo, Calif.,
recruiting software company. Overall, 93% of recruiters said they
look at candidates' social media profiles, with 55% of recruiters
adding that online postings have changed their view of at least one
candidate. LinkedIn tends to be most useful for establishing candidates'
credentials and experience; Facebook is more helpful in determining a
candidate's cultural fit..."

"With a healthy number of server management professionals receiving raises and bonuses this year, one could assume a certain level of contentment, especially in these endlessly tough economic times. But living alongside that contentment is a restlessness driven by the desire for more challenging work and better potential for job growth, an IT salary survey reveals.

The cliché, 'I like my job, but it's the work I hate,' seems to apply..."

"The upside of life as an IT contractor is alluring. You get to be your
own boss, accept only the jobs you want, and work flexible hours. With
each assignment comes the opportunity to learn new skills and gain
exposure to different environments.

But there are obvious sacrifices - job security and paid vacations,
for starters. As an IT contractor, you're also often responsible for
your own benefits (healthcare, retirement), paying taxes, and marketing
yourself for the next gig..."

"Deciding to go it alone as an independent software developer is a
liberating experience. The thrill of being your own boss cannot be
denied -- neither can the fact that being your own boss means building
a business. It's no longer simply about the code. Everything is your
responsibility, from paperwork to partnerships, and with this increasing
burden come greater pitfalls that can sink your business.

While one little mistake might not tank your independent software
business immediately, such missteps tend to accumulate. It's easy to
get lost in your code, thinking everything is fine; suddenly, a pack of
problems pounce from the shadows to tear your business to shreds..."

"Help desk and technical support, cloud and social media have consistently been the least difficult roles to fill with exceptional talent.

Heading into 2014, 62 percent of IT leaders expected their IT budgets to increase, but through the first three-quarters of the year, the percentage of IT leaders who experienced increases never rose above 47 percent, according to a TEKsystems survey of more than 200 IT leaders, including chief technology officers (CTOs), IT vice presidents, IT directors and IT managers.

At the end of March and June, only 47 percent had seen increases, while at the end of September, 46 percent reported their budgets had increased. Heading into 2014, 26 percent of IT leaders expected their budgets to stay the same..."

"While growth in the IT industry as a whole continues at a brisk pace, some skills are hotter than others. "There are key areas of technology right now that are growing faster than others," says Dice.com president Shravan Goli. "What's interesting is that this growth stretches across a variety of industries.

The 10 job categories that follow represent the fastest-growing IT skills based on year-over-year growth in mentions in Dice.com's job postings. Skills made the list by being included in more than 1,000 postings. The growth rates listed are based on the ratio of current mentions compared mentions from September 2013..."

"When used strategically, social media is a way to connect directly with
your customers and generate leads. However, just being on LinkedIn or
Twitter isn't enough to deliver commercial results.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not the time you invest in your social
media that matters. Yes, a time commitment is required. But ultimately,
it's having a smart strategy that makes the real difference.

How do you improve your presence social media without spending lots more
time online? Here are 5 simple changes that will make your social media
strategy more effective..."

It is a question I hear quite often; it's the Holy Grail of social
media. In relative terms, social media is still in its infancy, and with
power moving to a more atomic level (i.e., individuals), businesses
struggle to respond to this seismic shift in power and influence. To
use social media effectively, businesses can't simply focus on the old
practice of accurate advertising placement on social websites. Instead,
they should focus on working with these new channels to improve sales,
customer service, retention and identifying new product opportunities..."

"Email is so common, and such a pedestrian workhorse, that it's easy to
take it for granted. But in a business setting, it's a fine opportunity
for you to win (or lose) people's esteem, and it can have a very positive
(or crushingly negative) effect on your employment. Let's take a look at
a baker's dozen of ways you can make sure your email habits and etiquette
are up to snuff. Note: we are not talking about marketing emails, but
person-to-person business emails..."

OZUG is the Oracle ZFS Storage Users Group, an IOUG Special Interest Group. As an independent and non-profit group, its charter is to help members collaborate and share information around Oracle ZFS Storage.
The User Group's Fall Conference is scheduled for November 10th at Oracle's Santa Clara office, with an RSVP requested by Monday, October 20th. Topics include:

"The falling cost of RAM is pushing bank data warehouses away from data storage and straight into memory, significantly reducing licensing and maintenance expense. Imagine all your data running in real-time and your reports available instantaneously -- and all at lower cost.

For decades, banks have struggled to keep up with data technology advances: how to store data economically, how to utilize it effectively, and how to make it pay off. Today, thanks to circumstances that enable in-memory database management solutions, banks have a great chance to get ahead of the big data curve..."

Copy Data is the term used to describe the copies of primary data made for data protection, testing, archives, eDiscovery and analytics. The typical focus of copy data is data protection to recover data when something goes wrong. The problem is that each type of recovery requires a different copy of data. Recovery from corruption requires snapshots. Recovery from server failure requires disk backup. Protection from disk backup requires tape. Finally, recovery from a site disaster requires that all these copies be off-site. Add to the data protection copy problem, all the copies being made for test/development, archives, eDiscovery and now analytics. The end result: copy data is about much more than data protection and providing the capacity to manage all these copies has become a significant challenge to the data center.

"At the Strata and Hadoop World conference this week in New York City,
Big Data practitioners and vendors will gather once again to learn from
and sell to each other. One aspect of this year's conference to note is
the rise of 'fake Big Data' products, that is products that have added
the adjective Big Data in the hope that the world will take more interest.

The urge to gain from the updraft of a powerful trend is a long
established practice of technology marketing. In the dot com boom
companies that had nothing to do with the Internet added '.com' to
their name..."

"Less than one-third of companies have predictive analytics capabilities
although big data analytics is a top priority for 88 percent of
executives, according to a new study from GE and Accenture.

The report, 'Industrial Internet Insights for 2015,' shows that there
is a growing urgency for organizations to embrace big data analytics to
advance their Industrial Internet strategy. But only 29 percent of the
250 executives surveyed for the study are using big data across their
company for predictive analytics or to optimize their business..."

"Big data raises, and rightfully so, data privacy concerns. We fear big data will expose our secrets to the world. But even if big data remained private, it could still expose our secrets to ourselves. In addition to its impact on our privacy, we should be concerned about how big data will impact our self-awareness.

As Scott Berkun blogged about the self-awareness paradox, 'To become more self-aware you have to be self-aware enough to realize how self-aware you are not. Unless something happens that forces you to realize how inaccurate your view of yourself is, you can go through life never even knowing who you are'..."

"A number of myths about big data have proliferated in recent years. Don't let these common misperceptions kill your analytics project.

As the idea of big data analytics becomes more popular, more vendors are touting its benefits and executives are looking to capitalize on its potential. But along the way, a number of big data myths have developed that, if unchecked, could limit the insights businesses can derive from their data..."

"Mobile apps are definitely here to stay. Experts advise, however,
that getting too comfortable with a mobile strategy and not adapting in
the ever changing app market is a recipe for disaster. Below are a few
predictions we have for 2015 at Bizness Apps:

1. Mobile Apps Will Become More Targeted.

Mobile apps used to be multipurpose, but as time goes on, experts
predict that apps will become more targeted towards specific needs
and services. People will begin using apps as tools, for specific
functions. With app stores becoming crowded and users spoiled for choice,
they'll be choosing apps that are as specific as possible..."

Fortunately, a wealth of virtual keyboard alternatives are now
available for download from your device of choice's app store. In
fact, virtual keyboards are more usable than ever, thanks to major
technological advancements made by third-party app developers over the
past half-decade. Today's keyboard apps are the smartest we've seen yet,
using sophisticated algorithms, aggressive autocorrect, and gesture-driven
input to achieve a fast, natural, intuitive typing experience.

Here are 11 of the most unique and innovative replacements for your
Android or iOS device's stock keyboard..."

"Mobile devices - laptops, tablets and smartphones - have been part of
the information technology culture for some time. Enabling employees and
contractors to bring their own devices to work has become a way of life
for many organizations and may soon become the norm.

Many organizations understand that traditional perimeter security defenses
are not effective at identifying attacks on mobile devices..."

"It's easy enough to assess how large enterprises are taking steps to
roll out bring your own device policies, or how smaller businesses are
coping. But what about the mid-market firms?

According to Good Technology's latest survey, the majority of industries
in the mid-market range have more than 50% BYOD penetration. Only
manufacturing (33%), wholesale (33%), energy (35%) and government (45%)
falls below the mark. Interestingly the legal industry (72%) had the
highest share..."

"I recently spent a couple of months on mobility roadshows, and while
the purpose was evangelism, I quickly realized I was learning a lot of
important things about what's on our customers' minds. Here are my top
three takeaways.

1. Customers get breadth. The level of interest in BYOD is impressive,
and customers are pretty savvy that BYOD means they can't take
the simplistic approach toward device management that worked for
corporate-owned devices..."

"Mobile devices - laptops, tablets and smartphones - have been part of
the information technology culture for some time. Enabling employees and
contractors to bring their own devices to work has become a way of life
for many organizations and may soon become the norm.

Many organizations understand that traditional perimeter security defenses
are not effective at identifying attacks on mobile devices..."

"We're in the midst of technology transitions that will have profound implications for the server operating system landscape over the next product cycle, with new challenges to the dominance of Windows Server in enterprise data centers. Companies should give some serious thought to their options. Is it time to reconsider the status quo?

Owen Allen writes, "Efficient networking is crucial for a virtual datacenter. (I suppose it's crucial for any kind of datacenter, but I'm focusing here.) In Ops Center, you can keep your vDC networks running using network domains. Network domains manage public networks with defined resources as well as ad-hoc private networks.

To create a network domain through Ops Center, you need to identify at least one fabric to support it, then run the Create Network Domain wizard. This wizard lets you create new dynamic private networks for the new domain and associate existing networks with it..."

Eric Renaud writes, "Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY) is a global leader in technology, consulting and services and an Oracle Diamond Partner that has graciously agreed to present on best practices garnered from experience working on Large Enterprise Identity Management deployments in a four part series hosted here in the Oracle Identity Management Blog.

Large Enterprises: Large Challenges

During the course of deploying Oracle Identity Management suite for various large enterprises, the Infosys Enterprise Security & Risk Management (ESRM) technology team has identified a few typical organizational scenarios:..."

Oracle leads in providing encryption and policy-based key management that ensure data protection for cloud and virtual environments. Oracle has proved its dramatic security performance advantages through rigorous testing. In the cloud a huge amount data needs to be encrypted. For data at rest, AES block-level encryption is FIPS 140-2 certified to support U.S. government agencies. The end-to-end performance of all system components that make up a virtualized environment..."

Nexenta Chairman and CEO, Tarkan Maner, will be honored as one of the '100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs' at the third annual Goldman Sachs Builders + Innovators Summit.

The Builders + Innovators Summit 2014 brings together emerging and seasoned entrepreneurs from a diverse set of industries. The focus is on building great and enduring companies that reshape their industries and make the world better through innovation. Mr. Maner will offer unique insights on how Nexenta is revolutionizing the data center with its Software Defined Storage solutions and participate in a series of workshop and discussions with peers.

Nexenta solutions and Super Micro Computer, Inc. announced a collaboration to enhance Supermicro's VMware EVO: RAIL and VMware Virtual SAN offerings with the NexentaConnect for VMware Virtual SAN product, providing full featured file services.

Supermicro, coupled with NexentaConnect, will be able to provide VMware Virtual SAN-based systems including Virtual SAN Ready Nodes and an EVO: RAIL appliance to deliver robust and complete platform for its worldwide partners to provide a full-featured and complete hyper-converged solutions helping customers transition to a Software-Defined Data Center.

Bluechip Infotech and Nexenta, (@Nexenta), the global leader in
Software-Defined Storage (#softwaredefinedstorage) (SDS) announced an
exciting new strategic partnership. Through this partnership Bluechip
Infotech's resellers, systems integrators, and managed service providers
will team with Nexenta to deliver Software-Defined Storage solutions
across the Australian market, to organizations of all sizes.

Nexenta has been involved in Openstack since 2012, and we're thrilled to continue our support of the community at Openstack Paris. With Openstack technology and the support of our partners, Nexenta enables enterprises to create optimized storage clusters for open, agile and secure OpenStack environments that scale quickly and easily.

Nexenta works with a variety of ecosystem partners to bring Openstack implementations to life! Come visit us at the Seagate booth on the expo floor, set up a demo with one of our local product experts, or join us at our OpenSDx VIP Reception! To schedule a demo, please email emea.marketing@nexenta.com.